Ever met somebody and within the first minute you knew you had a lot in common and the potential for a great friendship? Well, meet MJ Gottlieb, who in all honesty, I barely know. I "met" MJ and his partner, Gary Oneil, on Twitter. I started reading their tweets and following the links. Over and over again they'd take me to a source loaded with great advice on business and marketing.

Well, we did a few RT's of each other's tweets and I did a little research and was hoping I could talk MJ into doing a podcast. He didn't disappoint me. Not only was he willing to join me on Weekend Wisdom, but he couldn't have been more frank and honest about his own challenges in business and giving photographers some terrific examples of what not to do in establishing your business.

This new podcast is based on MJ's book, How to Ruin a Business Without Really Trying and it's a definite must have addition to your own library. Throughout the discussion, I used the table of contents from the book. Over and over again we hit on topics and mistakes I've done myself over the years.

The first paragraph in the book's description on Amazon describes not only the book, but MJ's attitude throughout this new episode of Weekend Wisdom.

"When life hands you lemons what do you do? Well complaining certainly doesn't help anything, and nobody really listens anyway. Truth is, most successful people have failed their way to the top. For every successful person that you see, what you don't see is the trail of bankruptcies, failed partnerships, and pricey mistakes that made them who they are today. So does that mean every entrepreneur has to go through the same horrors, heartaches and pain? Is there any way to avoid this?"

While I always thank Bryan Caporicci and Rob Nowell of SproutingPhotographer.com for creating Weekend Wisdom, with this new podcast, I've got to put out an extra thanks to MJ. He really didn't know me at all, but was willing to take a shot at helping us with some terrific new content and so relevant to photographers in business today!

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"Why?"

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Authors

Skip Cohen is President of SCU, founder of Marketing Essentials International and past president of Rangefinder Publishing and WPPI. He's been an active participant in the photographic industry since joining Hasselblad USA in 1987 as president. He has co-authored six books on photography and actively supports dozens of projects each year involving photographic education.

Scott Bourne

Scott Bourne was the first Dean of Marketing at SCU. He helped to establish this blog as a resource for aspiring and working professional photographers. He's an educator, artist, author and from time to time you'll see his name on guest posts that are always relevant to photography and marketing!